Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

New Testimony in Trial of Accused Georgia School Shooter's Father; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Testifies in the Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial; Oversight Democrats Say Les Wexner is Downplaying Epstein Ties. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 18, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Today, more student witnesses take the stand in the trial of a Georgia father facing criminal charges over a mass shooting allegedly carried out by his teenage son. Jurors have heard from both students and teachers who were there on that tragic day at Apalachee High School, as well as crime scene specialists breaking down processing the crime scene in the aftermath.

CNN's Jean Casarez is with us now on this story. Jean, what is the jury hearing today?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, the crime scene specialist is on the stand. She's been on the stand for a long time, and she is actually showing the jury photos and video of the high school in the aftermath. And what we're seeing is she had three lasers that she was using, and so you just sort of see sort of like a drone, and you see the inside of the classroom.

You see chairs turned over. You see chairs stacked up to try to have a barricade. You see bullet holes in the walls of the classrooms.

In the hallway, you see bullet holes. And she just took out a minute ago out of an evidence bag the backpack of the shooter himself, and she is testifying and showing this jury. And why is this relevant?

Because the AR-15 style rifle is the one that committed these shots at the hands of Colt, of course, but it was gifted to him by his father. And so that is the relevance right there. The father gave him the gun, knowing something like this could happen.

Now, minutes ago also, the school resource officer took the stand and testified that as he was walking through the halls, he realized there was a shooting that had taken place, but the dust and the soot from the rifle he could not see. Finally, he comes face to face with the young man that was the shooter. I want you to listen to his testimony of what he saw, what he asked him and what he found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY BRANDON KING, BARROW COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: When we got close enough, Sergeant Boyd pulled his handcuffs out and I kept them at gunpoint to provide lethal coverage while Sergeant Boyd placed them in handcuffs. There was a what I identify as an air start style rifle very close to the shooter. And then after Sergeant Boyd placed him in handcuffs, he connected the search incident to arrest where he found several magazines still fully loaded in the shooter's pockets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Three magazines altogether. And those are magazines, the prosecutor says that the father, the defendant helped pay for, for his son to have all those bullets -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Very important case that we're watching there. Jean, thank you so much for the latest on that.

Coming up, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand in a landmark trial and finds himself face-to-face with parents who blame social media platforms for their Children's deaths.

[14:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The landmark social media addiction trial now underway in Los Angeles could set a precedent for holding social media companies responsible for the safety of their users.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: For years, tech giants have successfully fended off legal action against their platforms, and the outcome of this case could potentially reshape the industry. Let's talk to Jacob Ward about this. He's a technology journalist and the host of the Rip Current podcast.

Jacob, great to see you again. Thanks so much for joining us. You're calling this social media's big tobacco moment.

Help us understand that comparison.

JACOB WARD, TECHNOLOGY JOURNALIST: Well, Boris Brianna, you know, this is a landmark trial in my world because, you know, up until now, you really have had this blanket immunity extended to social media platforms in the United States under what's called Section 230. It's this immunity conferred upon them, considering them sort of neutral platforms that are not responsible for what we, you know, what crazy things we post on them. But this is now a question of design choices.

This case hinges on the idea that these companies may have made choices in how they build their systems such that they may have, according to the plaintiffs, encouraged terrible choices in the kids that wound up on them. And so what this comes down to and why everyone is calling this the big tobacco moment is how much did these companies know ahead of time and what choices did they make anyway?

[14:40:00]

And as we've seen in discovery already, the documents coming out of these companies show that they were very much aware that there were lots and lots of risks to kids and may have chosen to go forward anyway.

KEILAR: And the Jacob, the plaintiff's lawyer referenced what he said was an internal document and an internal e-mail from 2015 when he questioned Zuckerberg. And you say there are revelations coming from internal documents released as part of this lawsuit. What do you think we're learning from these?

WARD: I mean, they are really an extraordinary trove. I mean, as a reporter, it is the dream, right, to see inside how these companies make decisions. Until now, you know, you've only really had these CEOs in front of maybe a congressional subcommittee where it's mostly posturing and performative.

But now you're actually seeing real documentation in discovery. And as a result, we're seeing, you know, e-mail exchanges in which Adam Asari and Zuckerberg and others are discussing whether or not there -- they should allow the kinds of filters that show you what you would look like with plastic surgery. There are documents in which they talk about needing tweens in order to turn them into teen users of the platform.

I mean, you have these very damning documents. And so, you know, the arguments that Meta are making here are that they do a lot to protect kids, that they, you know, are concerned about the safety of kids. But these documents show a very mercenary kind of discussion going on inside these companies, weighing the possible risks to these kids against the need to grow the product as fast as they can.

And that tension is really, really, I would say, pretty ugly for a jury to be seeing.

SANCHEZ: And the plaintiffs are zeroing in on exactly what you're describing, right? Because Meta is arguing that the plaintiff already faced many significant, difficult mental health challenges before she ever used social media. So their argument is essentially that despite that, these companies created tools to exploit young children.

WARD: That's right. And what we're seeing here is, you know, a an argument from Meta that we've heard before. That basically, you know, they can't be held responsible for the behavior of individuals on the platform. They are just, you know, the place where those individuals gather.

But, you know, so their argument, as you say here, Boris, is that, you know, this was a kid with a difficult home life, and they shouldn't be held responsible for that difficult home life. They say that, you know, these trials are going to be cherry picking documents and that they don't see the totality of it all. But the thing to remember here, you guys, right, is that this is the first of what could be 1,600 cases along these lines.

It's a bellwether case. And so whatever comes out about this particular kid in her particular experience, winds up being code for millions of kids experiences as represented in future lawsuits. And so it is very important for Meta and Google to basically push back on these claims and try to cast this as, you know, bad behavior by parents or tough choices by a kid as opposed to their own design flaws.

That's going to be the essence of their argument here.

KEILAR: Yes, it's going to be really interesting because so many kids do have difficult home lives. They do have mental health. And if this is the tobacco moment, you wonder how is this going to be seen?

Is that going to excuse the social media companies? Or is that going to be seen as almost like blaming someone's particular lungs for making them susceptible to cancer when it comes to tobacco? I am curious about this moment where Kaley's attorney says the plaintiff began using Instagram at age nine, so she uses it really young, right?

And the app technically requires users to be 13 to sign up. And Zuckerberg said that younger Children are quote not allowed on Instagram. Tell us about what stood out to you in this back and forth.

WARD: Well, it's a tough one, right? This is the first back and forth that we've heard from inside the courtroom. And what we have here is Zuckerberg saying we have these protections in place, and you know, we have underage rules here and it's clearly spelled out. To which the plaintiff's lawyer said, are you expecting a nine year old to read the fine print? Is that truly your claim under oath here that kids under 13 are not allowed on your platform?

So some pretty tough stuff. You know, the optics here for a jury are really the thing, right? We are not just talking about public opinion. We're talking about the opinion of a jury.

And I'll just say, you know, we could really go either way here. I will say the Facebook team didn't do themselves any favors by showing up this morning, wearing the Meta Ray Ban glasses that have cameras built into them. I don't know if they thought this was going to be a product placement idea or what.

But they walked into the courtroom with these things and the judge, Judge Kuhl, had to say, this is a closed proceeding. You can't record this. And so anyone who has recorded this on your face glasses must delete it or you'll be held in contempt. The jury presumably heard that that can't have set up something nice here.

So this is a very, very fraught moment for Meta. It could change the rules on social media forever. And it really comes down to the opinion of these everyday people, not senators, not you and me, but these everyday people in the jury.

We've never seen that before you guys.

[14:45:00]

SANCHEZ: We'll see all of this sits with them. We hadn't heard the detail about the glasses. That is wild. Jacob Ward, thanks so much for joining us.

WARD: Appreciate you guys.

[14:45:28]

Still ahead, a close call for one family after a pickup goes airborne flying into their house. Whoa, the details in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Happening now in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, several Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are in Ohio, deposing retail billionaire Les Wexner.

[14:50:00]

The former owner of Victoria's Secret is named as a, quote, co- conspirator in the newly released DOJ files, and lawmakers say Wexner is now trying to downplay his relationship with Epstein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: And we should be very clear that there would be no Epstein Island, there'd be no Epstein plane, there'd be no money to traffic women and girls. Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Les Wexner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, in a statement released by lawmakers, Wexner called Epstein a con man, adding, quote, "While I was conned, I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide." We should know Wexner has not been charged with any crime and has denied knowledge of Epstein sex trafficking crimes.

And we're joined now by James Marsh. He's an attorney who represents several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. And while I do note that that he has never been charged, has denied any wrongdoing, James, a victim has claimed that she was trafficked to Wexner. From your perspective, what do the survivors that you represent think Congress can learn from Les Wexner?

JAMES MARSH, EPSTEIN ACCUSERS' ATTORNEY: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me on your show. I think there's really nothing we can learn from Les Wexner.

Obviously, he has a tremendous amount of information. He was there at the very beginning. He was there when my client, Maria Farmer, was basically kept hostage on his property in Ohio.

But I don't think anyone associated with Epstein at this point, especially somebody as important as Wexner, has any reason to tell the truth. I don't think there's anything that he can say that can be trusted in this situation. He has too much at stake.

He knows too much. And there's too much water under the bridge for him to come clean on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

KEILAR: What questions -- maybe the questions are what matter, right? What should they be asking him?

MARSH: Well, I mean, to date, some of his explanations that he in some way was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, that Jeffrey Epstein stole hundreds of millions of dollars from him, stole the most expensive piece of real estate in Manhattan from him, from a very sophisticated man who's made billions of dollars in the retail industry. I think painting himself as a victim of Jeffrey Epstein strains credulity. I think they need to start there.

I mean, most people that, you know, got one $100 million, $200 million stolen from them would go to the FBI, would report this crime, would get law enforcement who was surrounding his compound in Ohio involved. Now he claims he didn't, too much trouble. I don't know.

Maybe he's got too much money, so much money. It doesn't matter. Just a rounding error in his financial statements.

But this kind of impunity that's been demonstrated by him makes him, in my opinion, really not trustworthy. And they need to start at the beginning. The nature of his relationship, why someone of this wealth and power and prestige would turn over all of his estate to a con man, I just don't think from the very beginning anything he says is going to be believable.

KEILAR: You're not buying that. You think people shouldn't buy that. So your client, Maria Farmer, has alleged that she was assaulted by Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein at that Ohio estate of Epstein's.

You talked a little bit about that. It was reportedly inside a complex developed by Wexner. That's according to The New York Times.

Why is that significant?

MARSH: I think the reason that it's significant is as the first whistleblower in this case from 1996, when she made her complaint that we now know has been substantiated to the FBI, a lot of that conduct took place in Wexner's property, at his property in Ohio. And you have to ask your question, you know, somebody is so rich, so powerful, so removed from the everyday that he apparently doesn't even know what's going on, on his own property. Doesn't even know who's there, what kind of activities are occurring in the mansions that he built. These either are seriously out of touch or seriously delusional about the truth of what was going on in his name, with his money on his property.

So I think those are questions that they can ask. And certainly my client was held there against her will by the law enforcement, local law enforcement that he employed to guard him. This is very common.

They'll say, well, you know, we're on the night watch. We're only called. Very common. Somebody that's that rich and powerful hires off duty policemen with their guns, with their badges to guard his compound.

So I think we need to go back to the very beginning in the 1990s when this relationship with Jeffrey Epstein came into being, when people like Maria Farmer were basically held hostage on his property, trafficked there for whatever purposes by Jeffrey Epstein, allegedly to be an artist in residence. And he certainly has a lot of questions that can be asked and a lot of information that he should possess.

[14:55:00]

But I don't think we're going to be effective at getting any sort of mea culpa by him either today or in the future, so.

KEILAR: Yes, those Democrats who spoke on camera about it indicating that this will raise more questions perhaps than it will answer. James Marsh, thank you so much for being with us.

And farmers race to save their crops as a wildfire the size of Chicago crosses from Oklahoma into Kansas. We have the latest on the fast burning fire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: So take a look at this. A truck goes airborne right into a house. Unbelievable video here.

Authorities say the driver may have hit a dirt mound before launching into the air. He is facing reckless driving and other charges. Thankfully, the family in that home was not hurt.

But as you can see ...

END